BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Work place accidents claimed 18,501 lives in China in the first quarter, down 7.6 percent from the same period last year, the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) announced Tuesday.
The total of 97,991 work place accidents in the first three months was 17,163 fewer than the first quarter last year, a drop of 14.9 percent, SAWS spokesman Huang Yi said at a press conference.
During that time, 509 people died in 307 coal mine accidents, compared with 584 people from the same period last year. The number of coal mine accidents in the first quarter of 2008 stood at 362.
Although the number of coal mine accident victims declined, a coal mine gas explosion in northern Shanxi Province on Feb. 22 killed 78 people.
Twenty of the country's 32 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangdong, reported no serious work place accidents, Huang said.
Yet work safety situation remained "grim" and "major accidents in some industries still happen from time to time" despite an overall improvement, said a SAWS statement.
Six major work place accidents, which claimed 42 lives, occurred in centrally-administered state-owned enterprises in the first quarter, including a blast that ripped through an accommodation building occupied by workers of the China Railway Construction Corp. on March 11, killing 11 and injuring 20.
In the first quarter, 10 work place accidents were reported to have caused large economic losses and resulted in the evacuations of more than 400 people in total, including a fire in a hotel building adjacent to the new China Central Television headquarters in Beijing on Feb. 9.
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